Published on 2025-12-31 by Stuart Spence
I've often liked year-end reviews like from Wendover Productions. So here's another for ChessCraft. See also:
Metrics
This year ChessCraft passed one million installs. Curiously, the page on Google Play still reports just 500,000 several months later! I guess Google doesn't care about my vanity metrics …
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Published on 2025-09-18 by Stuart Spence

Wow! How about that. Do I get a gold plaque from YouTube now? I still remember celebrating 100,000 in 2021:

And if we really go back, 100 in 2019:

I guess I like round numbers. If you haven't passed it yet, I recommend celebrating your one billion second birthday …
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Published on 2025-08-26 by Stuart Spence

Sometimes a merge request (MR) doesn't merit a code review (CR) because AI was used in a bad way that harms the team or the project. For example:
- Code deletion would improve the MR a lot.
- You don't know the basics of the language you submitted.
- Documentation spam.
- Blatantly inconsistent …
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Published on 2025-07-13 by Stuart Spence
I often see these questions online:
"I have no work experience. How do I get my first software job?"
"I got laid off with only have 2 years of experience. How do I get a software job?"
"What certs can help me get a software job?"
I'm a team lead …
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Published on 2024-12-30 by Stuart Spence
I've often liked year-end reviews like from quanta magazine. So here's another for ChessCraft like last year and the year before that.
Metrics
It's been 7 years since I started working on ChessCraft on 2017-12-30. We're now at 920,000 installs with 260,000 this year. I thought I might …
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Published on 2024-11-11 by Stuart Spence

Here's my experience attending the founding convention of the Canadian Future Party (CFP) in November 2024 in Ottawa. Members voted for the first time on policy, leadership, and a constitution. Here I write about procedural problems and I propose modern solutions.
(Version française)
Context
The Canadian Future Party (CFP) officially …
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Published on 2024-11-11 by Stuart Spence

Voici mon expérience au congrès fondateur du Parti avenir canadien (PAC) en novembre 2024 à Ottawa. Les membres ont voté pour la première fois sur les politiques, la direction et une constitution. Ici, j'écris sur les problèmes de procédure et je propose des solutions modernes.
(English version)
Contexte
Le Parti …
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Published on 2024-10-09 by Stuart Spence
The human internet is dying.
AI has created some big problems with election integrity, spam …
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Published on 2024-09-22 by Stuart Spence
Sometimes my friends, family, colleagues, or online communities ask me this question:
"If you could wave a magic wand to make one change in public service, what would it be?"
I'd create a new tool for managers in government called "displacement". Here's how it works.
Disclaimer
The opinions here are …
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Published on 2024-08-02 by Stuart Spence
After some big disappointments at Environment Canada, I decided to take three months off in May, June, and July of 2024. Now that my time off is coming to a close I thought it would be nice to jot down all the nice ways I got to spend my time …
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